I suppose it was inevitable. Having exhausted – at least for now – the well of anguish about pubic and armpit hair, the world has moved on to the final taboo in male grooming: back hair. The Americans, never shy of an intimate discussion, are having the debate, with recent articles in Slate and the NY Times arguing that back hair ought to be “sexy and not shameful” and that “someone will be into it”, respectively.

I beg to differ. Uniquely among body hair problems, back hair is only a real issue for other people. Like heavy snorers, the dorsal gorillas among us can go through life cheerfully unperturbed by the disgust they leave in their wake.

Perhaps they don’t even notice. I always thought I had a hairless back. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I might be completely wrong. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever really seen my own back. Who has? It’s not as if people with cameras routinely ask you to swivel so they can get a better angle on your lumbar. And if you have the system of mirrors at home that might do the same job, you probably have bigger social problems than a bit of spine fuzz. Still, I was reasonably confident when I asked my girlfriend to verify things.

This was not the answer I expected. I felt disgusted with myself. Even as a man with a fairly British (ie high) tolerance of this stuff, to see back hair is still to think: “You should sort that out, mate.” Of course there’s no rational explanation for this, but you didn’t come here looking for rational explanations. You came for straw polls of my female friends ie Real Women.

“Vile.” Anna, 26.

“The worst is when it comes all the way up over the shoulders. I don’t know why, it just makes me think of apes.” Olivia, 27.

Yet the same women seemed very ambivalent about whether men plagued by back hair ought to wax it off. Waxing has yet to shake off the Joey-from-Essex/Peter Andre connotations. And anything, “literally anything”, is better than shaving. Chest stubble currently sits top of the disgust tree, but back stubble, were it to catch on, would probably take the prize.

“It has occurred to me that I ought to do something about it,” says my friend Sam, who has a hairy back. “But my girlfriend says she doesn’t mind. Apart from her, it’s only really an issue during the summer. And once you start, then where do you stop?”

At the waistband, I wanted to say, but didn’t. This question was already the most delicate and emotionally fraught interaction we have had, in a friendship of more than 10 years. And I know what he means. This issue lies right on the faultline of the classic dilemma in male grooming, particularly for the diffident Englishmen, between “vain fool” and “looking after yourself”. The only thing I’ve ever waxed is a ski, but if I was cursed like my friend Sam, even I might thing about “getting something done”.

All the same, I was unsurprised that there are plenty of women who tolerate back hair on the man they love, but surprised not to find anyone who thought it was sexy. Most things are thought sexy by someone, somewhere, and the internet means they can easily meet each other and swap photographs. Perhaps my friend Tom, who is gay, would have the answer?